


Hijacked

by Libraryadia, Mara_Jade101



Series: Human Puppets Trilogy [1]
Category: A to Z Mysteries - Ron Roy, Calendar Mysteries - Ron Roy, Capital Mysteries - Ron Roy, Encyclopedia Brown - Donald J. Sobol, Max Finder Mystery (Comics)
Genre: Attempted Kidnapping, Brainwashing, F/F, F/M, Forced Split Personalities, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Kidnapping, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Mind Manipulation, Mind Palace, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-27 12:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30122595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Libraryadia/pseuds/Libraryadia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mara_Jade101/pseuds/Mara_Jade101
Summary: The Kid Detectives have been solving mysteries for years. So when they decide to team up to confront criminals, the world will be aware of them, and their near-perfect reputation.But that's the problem.Nobody's perfect.And even heroes fall.
Relationships: Bradley Pinto/Dawn Armstrong-Duncan, Dink Duncan & Josh Pinto & Ruth Rose Hathaway, Dink Duncan & Lucy Duncan & Dawn Armstrong-Duncan, Dink Duncan/Josh Pinto/Ruth Rose Hathaway, Encyclopedia Brown & Sally Kimball, Encyclopedia Brown/Sally Kimball, Josh Pinto & Brian Pinto & Bradley Pinto, KC Thornton & Marshall Li & Malia Z Thornton, KC Thornton/Marshall Li, Malia Z Thornton/Zoe Palgrave, Max Finder & Zoe Palgrave & Alison Santos, Max Finder/Alison Santos, Nate Hathaway & Lucy Duncan & Brian Pinto & Bradley Pinto & Dawn Armstrong-Duncan, Nate Hathaway & Ruth Rose Hathaway, Nate Hathaway/Lucy Duncan
Series: Human Puppets Trilogy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2216844





	1. Part 1: Eyes of Glass [Chapter 1: Luke Corcoran/Kyson Woods]

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, some notes you need to know before reading this fic:
> 
> The premise is that a company Luke Corcoran was working for was secretly running a genetic manipulation scheme involving the Surviving 6 (the fan name for the A to Z trio's parents; I'll refer to them as such for shorthand but Afton could not exist in this universe, given what's in store for all of the characters), both of Malia Z's biological parents, Bruno Brown, Sally’s mom, and Max's parents with the cover story being that they were running a health program and a sperm donation clinic.  
> Luke was able to use his job to get the sperm donation that resulted in KC but uncovered the truth about his employers. He was killed in a car "accident" they arranged but not before leaving what he knew in secret letters for KC, which she found sometime between "White House Whiteout" and "Capital Crime" so the latter opens with her aware that Luke wasn't her biological father though she's still searching for said biological father's identity.  
> Similarly Malia Z's parents stumbled across the truth, leading to their murder and Malia ending up in the foster system (this doesn't prevent her from disowning her paternal relatives; "I was gonna kill them but someone beat me to it" isn't endearing). The latter was unintentional as the company intended to get their hands on Malia Z and raise her into a tool.  
> Flash forward to the present day where it turns out that the "health supplements" the company gave out are nanomachines that serve two purposes. 1) They give the children of the person who received them superpowers of some kind and 2) They allow the company to turn said children into human puppets. Naturally several kidnappings result and rescue attempts ensue.

Luke Corcoran stared in horror at the files he had found. “I can’t believe it…” he whispered. “I can’t believe what they’re doing. What they want to do. And I’ve been helping them.”

He shook his head. He couldn’t blame himself for doing his job when he didn’t know what it actually entailed...but now that he knew, he had to figure out a way to stop it...and apologize to his daughter for what he had gotten her into.

_ ‘I’ve got to make this right...and stop all of this before anyone gets hurt…’ _

Little did he know that while he’d be able to leave secret letters to his daughter telling her some of what he knew, his death would only serve as a cover up for his employers’ true intentions, including the designs they had for his daughter…

XXX

“Are you sure, Kyson?” Jaslene asked fearfully.

“Yes. They weren’t interested in Malia’s health or yours; they just wanted test subjects,” Kyson growled. “But I have proof of what they’ve done.”

“Isn’t that dangerous to keep in the house?” his wife asked.

“Yes but we’ll be turning it over to the police soon and all of this will be over…”

A loud crash sounded, making the pair jump.

“What was that?!”

Jaslene got her answer when masked men with guns burst into the room.

“What the…?!”

“Shouldn’t have stuck your nose where it didn’t belong, Woods,” one of them growled. “Now we gotta take you out.”

“Run, Jaslene!”

But Kyson’s warning came too late and Jaslene fell to the bullets of their attackers, with Kyson swiftly joining her. As his vision went black, he saw the gunmen taking his proof.

“Where’s the kid?” the leader asked.

But before he could get an answer, police sirens sounded and he cursed.

“Let’s get out of here; at least they can’t pin anything on the boss. We can come back for the kid.”

The only good thing that came out of this, as it turned out, was that Malia DIDN’T end up in the hands of whoever had hired the gunmen to kill the Woods...at least, not then…


	2. Chapter 2- KC

**[Several years later…]**

17-year-old KC Thornton looked up at her sister Malia as she entered the room. 

“Find anything?” Malia asked softly as she sat down next to her. 

KC shook her head. “No. The only thing I found was the letters Dad left me and those didn't make much sense.” She leaned back in her chair and sighed. “At least they didn't until we realized that Josh and the twins are my half-siblings about a year ago.”

Malia chuckled. “Yeah…speaking of Josh, how is he? I never heard exactly what went down in Green Lawn…”

KC blew air out of her mouth in exasperation. “A wanted criminal, Carl Howard, decided to become a criminal bounty hunter of sorts and go after the people who put the criminals in jail. He was responsible for hypnotizing Josh and trying to ruin the trio’s reputation, but Dink and Ruth Rose intervened and stopped him from committing any crimes. Carl…didn't take that well.”

She shifted nervously in her seat and continued “He drugged the trio to the point where they were more open to suggestions and tried to get them to jump off of City Hall.”

Malia gasped. “Oh my…what happened?”

KC smiled. “Dawn got involved and intervened right before they jumped. Scared everyone to death- the pun is not intended- but they survived with more mental scars than physical ones. They’ve been recovering from that while Carl is in jail, and from what I've heard, he’s not getting out any time soon.”

A knock on the door led to Marshall being yanked into the room by a very bouncy Natasha, who landed on Malia’s lap and barked several times. She laughed. “Ok, I hear you girl! We’re coming, we’re coming!”

Marshall laughed and kissed her cheek. “Hey, Kay.”

“PDA!” Malia coughed, and Marshall promptly threw a pillow at her. The three friends dissolved into bigger laughter and walked out the bedroom door.

KC suddenly froze as she cursed. “I forgot to close the laptop! Give me a minute, please?”

She ran back inside and closed her notes on her father’s letters before ultimately turning the laptop off and running back outside, her phone in hand as she dialed the number for her half-brother.

Josh quickly answered the phone. “Kit-Kat! How are you, Sis?”

“Trying to hurry to the Oval Office. You?”

“Running after Dawn. She’s chasing a unicorn again.” The “I'm so done with this” tone in his voice made her crack up harder.

“Well, tell her I said hi, okay?”

“Will do. See ya, Sis!”

He hung up and the three friends ran toward the Oval Office as fast as they could.


	3. Chapter 3: Sally

“So your dad left you a bunch of letters that don’t make much sense?” Sally asked over the video chat she, Encyclopedia and their fellow teen detectives had set up.

KC nodded. “About the only thing I can get out of them is that he wasn’t my biological father, which makes sense now, that my conception was tied to his work and that there was something he stumbled across that was a dangerous secret. Unfortunately, I have nothing else to go on.”

“Do you know where he worked?” Encyclopedia asked.

“Some place called Beta Health Co. Apparently it was a combination health program and sperm donation company. They had a lot of locations then. I mean they still do but several have shut down for whatever reason.”

“Beta Health Co. sounds familiar,” Max said, his brow furrowed in thought. “I think Mom participated in some kind of program for people who wanted to conceive. Special supplements and stuff. Maybe we should look into that. See if anyone we know was part of them and had any weird side effects.”

His sentence was punctuated by a loud sneeze that clearly was fake.

Everyone laughed as Bradley said “Nice one, Max!”

However, the laughter died at the look of confusion on his face. “That...wasn’t me.”

There was a long silence. Then Marshall cracked “Here’s hoping the weirdest thing that happens to any of us during this mess is our sneezes starting to sound faked.”

There was a round of nods as Max shifted uncomfortably. Sally couldn’t blame him; sneezes were involuntary but this sounded like...she shook her head and told herself not to be ridiculous; Zoe and Alison would have noticed if Max had gotten brainwashed or hypnotized.


	4. Chapter 4- [Redacted]/Susie

“So you found them?” The man behind the desk asked bluntly, leaving no room for announcements.

[Redacted] nodded. “Yes sir. All twelve of them.”

“Excellent…” the man said, grinning a wicked smile. “What do the old stories say about this?”

[Redacted] looked up at him in confusion before the man said “Let the little Children come to me…”

XXX

Susie looked up as her son entered the room clearly on the phone with the other members of the Teen Detectives he had befriended and waved at him to try and get his attention. Dink nodded and pulled the phone away from his face and asked “Yeah?”

She blinked at him before she shook her head. She understood when he wasn't having a good day, and the tone in his voice clearly said that. “When you’re done, can you help unload the dishes?” she asked.

He nodded and turned back to the conversation but then suddenly started screaming, dropping his phone on the floor and bringing his hands to his head as if he was in some sort of pain. 

_‘WHAT THE…’_

Susie leapt up from her seat as he collapsed on his knees, and from the overlapping screams and panicked voices on the other ends, something similar was happening to them too. Flipping her son on his back and pinning him to the floor, the screams suddenly stopped and he just shook there before slowly cracking his eyes open. She inhaled sharply at the completely glassy expression in his eyes before he blinked and his eyes were normal again.

“Ow…that hurt…” Josh muttered through the phone’s call and could be seen wincing as he stood up. “Am I the only one who went through that?”

Encyclopedia, Sally, the Hathaway siblings, the Thornton girls, the Pinto Twins, Lucy, and Max all raised a hand. She noted that Marshall, Zoe, Dawn, and Alison did not, and she shook her head as Dink muttered “Feels like I just got hit by a fucking sledgehammer…”

Susie cleared her throat and said “Alright; is everyone okay?”

“On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?” Marshall joked.

“Zero,” the Idaville duo answered in unison before looking at each other and moving out of the screen to talk. 

Susie sighed. “Dink, Lucy, are you two okay?”

“Just perfect, Mom!” Lucy said fake-cheerfully.

She shook her head as Dink sat up and groaned. “Marshall, you jinxed it!”

“I'm sorry!” he hissed, trying to hold in laughter at something happening off screen. “I'm serious; are you guys okay?”

“We’re fine,” the struck-down kids said in unison before looking at each other and laughing.

Susie smiled. _‘Just another day of parenting…’_

Except the glassy look in her son’s eyes still kept bothering her as if something was wrong…


	5. Chapter 5: Alison

Alison tapped her fingers on one leg as she and Zoe sat in the hospital waiting room. Max had collapsed in their last class of the day, apparently having some kind of seizure. The teacher had called for an ambulance and dismissed the class early; she and Zoe had managed to get to the hospital just behind the ambulance but since they weren’t family, they were just expected to wait for Max’s parents to show up and give them the details...Alison wasn’t holding up well, no matter what she told herself.

“So…” Zoe said suddenly in a tone of forced calm. “When are you planning on telling Max how you feel about him?”

“What do you mean?” Alison asked, hoping her confused tone sounded authentic.

“I mean that you’ve had a crush on him for years,” Zoe deadpanned as she gave Alison a flat look.

Alison blinked as her cheeks went red. Then her lips curved into a mischievous smile. “I don’t know. When are you planning on confessing to Malia?”

Zoe’s blush was practically fire on her face. “Okay; fair,” she mumbled as she buried her face in her hands. Then she looked up, her head cocked. “But seriously; you’ve known Max since you were both 5. What’s standing in your way? I don’t think there’s anyone who knows him better than you.”

Alison sighed. “We’re friends.”

“Yes. And?”

“And I don’t want to lose that. Any more than you want to lose Malia.”

Zoe sighed. “What a pair we are.”

Alison let out a bitter laugh. “Yup.” She sighed and stood. “I’m getting something to drink. Do you want anything?”

Zoe shook her head and pulled a textbook out of her bookbag. “Think I’ll try to get some work done.”

Alison nodded and headed off. As she walked, she realized something and pulled out her phone, pulling up the group chat their circle of teen detectives had created. She typed _Hey; has anyone experienced or witnessed out of the blue seizures?_

She sent the message and waited uneasily for a reply.

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, everyone! We are back, and with yet another fic involving the Kid Detectives. 
> 
> This one is going to get really interesting, guys, so buckle up. We're diving straight into the story that will leave the Kids shaken...
> 
> <3~Mara Jade


End file.
